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The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Volume 2 (of 3)

Note IV'-21 — Chapter IV · OBSERVATIONS ON NEW SPAIN.[IV'-1]

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Here we enter the legendary land where we are liable to be soon confronted with the standard specter of the northwest passage to India, and other well-dressed phantoms. The body of water which the map shows probably represents Utah l., south of Great Salt l., and connected therewith by the short course of the Jordan. This seems to be what Pike means by the legend: "This lake is known as high as the 40° of Lat. there it opens wider to the West and receives the Waters of the Rio Yampancas"; for we can readily understand this as a way of saying that the lake is connected with a larger one to the W. Utah l. is meridionally E. of Great Salt l. by a few miles, and entirely S. of it; the Jordan is a very short stream between them. In a broad sense, then, Pike's Lac de Timpanagos or Lake of Tampanagos includes both these bodies of water; and his Rio Yampancas answers to Bear r., the large stream which falls into Great Salt l. at Bear River bay. His Sierra de Tampanagos covers the mountains on the E. and S. E. of Great Salt l. A different form of the same word appears in his "Indiens Yamparicas" of that region, and yet another in the legend: "The Lake of Tampanagos is supposed to be the same as the Lake of Thequaio in the Chart d'Alzate de Thequao placed in 40° of Lat. some Historians pretend that the Aretiqui comes from this Lake."

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